At the mouth of the Devil River and the site of a Native American village in 1839, Ossineke was named for a native word, wawsineke, meaning “image stones,” which referred to a prominent landmark. The pair of boulders were thought to encase the spirit of Chief Shinggabaw, who had promised to return there after death.

When a rival tribe removed the sacred stones during a raid, the waters of Thunder Bay are said to have destroyed the raiders and returned the stones to their original site at the village. An angler later used the boulders to anchor fishing nets; the stones now repose at the bottom of Lake Huron.